Improving Spent - Fuel Storage at Nuclear Reactors: Storing Spent Radioactive Fuel in Dry Form Rather Than in Increasingly Jammed Cooling Pools Is Much Safer, and Can He Done with Already Available Funds

Improving Spent - Fuel Storage at Nuclear Reactors: Storing Spent Radioactive Fuel in Dry Form Rather Than in Increasingly Jammed Cooling Pools Is Much Safer, and Can He Done with Already Available Funds

Alvarez, Robert, Issues in Science and Technology

The nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, which began with an earthquake in March 2011 and continues today, is casting a spotlight on nuclear reactors in the United States. At the Dai-Ichi nuclear power plant, at least one of the pools used for storing spent nuclear fuel--indeed, the pool holding the largest amount of spent fuel--has leaked and remains vulnerable. Because U.S. nuclear plants also use cooling pools for storing spent fuel, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) formed a task force to assess what happened at the stricken facility and identify lessons for the U.S. nuclear industry. In a July 2011 report, the NRC placed upgrading the safety of storage pools at reactor stations high on its list of recommendations.

But history and scientific evidence suggest that although useful, improving pool safety will not be enough. Efforts are needed to store more spent fuel in dry form, in structures called casks that are less susceptible to damage from industrial accidents, natural disasters, or even terrorist attacks. Fortunately, money is already available to pay for this step, a situation almost unheard of in today's harsh economic climate. Now it is up to the federal government to develop policies to make this happen, for the safety of the nuclear electric industry and the nation. There is no time to wait. It is estimated that spent-fuel storage pools at U.S. reactors, which are already jammed, will hit maximum capacity by 2015.

History of delay

Since the early days of the nuclear electric industry the NRC s regulations regarding storage of spent fuel have assumed that the federal government would open in a timely fashion a permanent repository for nuclear wastes. This goal was codified in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. Until such a facility became available, the NRC would allow plant operators to store spent fuel on a temporary basis in on-site cooling pools. However, the quest for permanent nuclear waste disposal remains illusory. As a result, nuclear plant operators are storing spent fuel in cooling pools for longer periods and at higher densities (four to five times higher, on average) than originally intended.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

As the owner of the Millstone nuclear reactor in Water-ford, Connecticut, observed in a 2001 report, neither the federal government nor utilities anticipated the need to store large amounts of spent fuel at operating sites. "Large-scale commercial reprocessing never materialized in the United States," the utility, Dominion Power, said. "As a result, operating nuclear sites were required to cope with ever-increasing amounts of irradiated fuel ... This has become a fact of life for nuclear power stations."

U.S. reactor stations have collectively produced approximately 65, 000 metric tons of spent fuel. Roughly three-quarters of the total is currently stored in pools, and the remainder is stored in dry form in casks, an inherently safer form of storage. The spent fuel stored in pools holds between 5 and 10 times more long-lived radioactivity than the reactor cores themselves hold. Because they were intended to be temporary, the pools do not have the same "defense in depth" features that the NRC requires of reactors. Even after it completed its assessment of the Fukushima disaster, the NRC has continued to allow nuclear operators to rely on cooling pools for storing spent fuel. As a result, spent-fuel pools may be destined to remain a fact of life for the indefinite future. But this possible future can and should be avoided, especially given the recent events in Japan.

Lessons from disaster

In the late afternoon of March 11, 2011, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake, followed by a 46-foot-high tsunami, struck the Dai-Ichi nuclear power site in the Fukushima Prefecture of Japan. The destruction was enormous. In a little more than an hour, offsite power was severed, backup diesel generators were rendered inoperable, and the infrastructure of wiring, pipes, and pumps necessary to maintain cooling for the four reactors and the fuel-storage pools was severely damaged. …

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Improving Spent - Fuel Storage at Nuclear Reactors: Storing Spent Radioactive Fuel in Dry Form Rather Than in Increasingly Jammed Cooling Pools Is Much Safer, and Can He Done with Already Available Funds

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